A problem that is often encountered by beach-goers is the task of transporting several awkward and heavy itmes, such as ice chests and chairs, from their automobiles across great distances to the sand. Upon reaching the beach's sand, the beach-goer still has the often difficult task of carrying these goods over the sand to a suitable location on the beach.
Various hand trucks, such as collapsible luggage carts, are known which provide a relatively easy means of transporting packaged goods across paved surfaces. A problem of such devices is that they are generally only suitable for use on smooth hard pavements and are quite ineffective over sand.
Some prior devices (eg. U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,615) employ wide wheels attached to the underside of carts. Although the use of wide wheels makes it less difficult to drag such carts across sand than standard size luggage cart wheels, such devices are still quite difficult to pull over soft sand, as the wheels invariably get bogged down in the sand. Additionally, such prior devices are inherently bulky--owing to the large wheels and their associated mounting apparatus--and are heavy and cannot be easily collapsed into a small package when not in use.
Other prior devices (eg. U.S. Pat. No. 3,046,031) comprise rigid curved backed drags which are provided with fixed wheels or rollers. A problem of these devices is that they cannot be easily collapsed or stored when not in use. Another problem of such devices is that it is very difficult to center the load over the wheels when the device is being pulled across smooth pavement. Another problem of such devices is that, because the angle and the position of the wheels relative to the "handle" is fixed, the height at which the "handle" is held above the ground dictates the mode of the device--that is, whether the wheels or the drag are against the ground. Accordingly, such devices are awkward to operate by anyone whose height doesn't "fit" the device.
A still further problem of such prior devices is that the height at which the "handle" is pulled while in the drag mode necessarily cannot be the same height at which the "handle" is pulled while the device is in the rolling mode.